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If you are starting learning French just now, you might want to know the basics to begin with and have a list of French simple words. French language contains 200,000 words and like any language we start learning, it can be intimidating.
Did you know?
If you learn five words a day for a year, you will know almost 1% of all the French words! Isn’t that motivating? You can enrich your French conversational skills and be more confident when talking!
How to learn French easily?
French is a difficult language, that is why you should start by learning basics and you cannot skip them. It is like building a house, if the foundations are not solid, your house will collapse! So, practice basics words and grammar 🙂
To keep your motivation, the key is not to put too much pressure on you. Practice a little but REGULARLY!
Have a notebook next to you to list all the new words you come across and for each noun, make a note if it is masculine or feminine. One advice to help you remember more easily vocabulary is to write your own sentence with that word. Also, use a dictaphone to record the pronunciation, so you can practice from anywhere!
To improve your listening, listen to French podcasts to get used to the ton, the accent and all the aspects of French language.
Speaking can be the most challenging to practice as you need to have a French person with you. Well, I have an alternative to that. To start, make sentences by talking to yourself! What are you thinking right now? Translate it in French!
Take a look at the articles below for more information!
~ How to overcome challenges when learning French?
~ How to memorize easily French vocabulary?
I have used these flashcards below and I recommend them. You can buy them by clicking on the below link:
To get Amazon’s reviews, click here!
Buying these flashcards using the above link (you will not pay more), allow me to get a little fee, to continue investing in my blog and help French learners.
Why learning French simple words so important?
It is like anything!
When you start a new job, you are not going to have as responsibilities to manage a team (maybe if you already have 10 years experience but let’s leave exceptions on the side). You are going to start with simple tasks, and why that? Because it is important if later you want to manage a team to know how processes work, otherwise if you do not understand them, you will not be able to take the right decisions.
Well, learning French is exactly the same! You need to know basics words because they are simply everywhere and by using them, you will sound like a real French person! 😉
Also, you will soon realise that grammar is very important in French and can be complex. But let’s start with simple grammar rules to begin your French learning journey:
- Articles in French: we use either “le”, “la”, “les” for “the” in English” and “un”, “une”, “des” for “a/an” in English because nouns are either masculine or feminine.
– In French, most nouns referring to boys/men and to girls/women are masculine and feminine respectively.
– Sometimes, the same word can be used to either refer to man or woman, in that case only the gender will change depending on the sex of the person it refers to.
– Some words have only one possible gender.
– Words with the following endings will be masculine (most of the time): “age”, “ment”, “oir”, “sme”, “eau”, “eu”, “ou”, “ier”, “in”, “on”.
– Words with the following endings will be feminine (most of the time): “ance”, “anse”, “ence”, “ense”, “ion”, “té”, “tier”. - Conjugating verbs: for instance the verbs from the first group, verbs finishing by “ER” will have the same ending when conjugating at the present simple, past, future. You learn just one verb and you know all of them!
- Adjectives in French are placed after the nouns (in general) whereas in English they are places before the nouns.
- Counting in French is so important to be able to tell the dates and time. What about telling your age to someone?
– un (1), deux (2), trois (3), quatre (4), cinq (5), six (6), sept (7), huit (8), neuf (9), dix (10)
– onze (11), douze (12), treize (13), quatorze (14), quinze (15), seize (16), dix-sept (17), dix-huit (18), dix-neuf (19), vingt (20)
– vingt et un (21), vingt-deux (22)…
– trente (30), quarante (40), cinquante (50), soixante (60)
– soixante-dix (60+10), soixante et onze (71), soixante-douze (72)…
– quatre-vingt (4×20)
– quatre-vingt-dix (4×20 +10) - Time in French: when saying the time, we will start by the hour and then the minutes.
– “Quarter past”, we say in French “et quart”
– “Half past”, we say “et demie”
– “Quarter to”, we say “moins le quart”
– For 02:10, we will say “il est deux heures dix”.
– For 02:50, we will say “il est trois heures moins dix” because it is almost 3 o’clock (three minus ten minutes).
Take a look at the articles below for more information!
French simple words: Greetings
| English | French | English | French |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hello | Bonjour | Bye (general) | Au revoir / Salut informal |
| Hi (informal) | Salut / Coucou | Bye (afternoon) | Bon après-midi |
| Good morning | Bonjour | How are you? | Comment ça va? |
| Good afternoon | Bonjour | What’s up? (informal) | Quoi de neuf? |
| Good evening | Bonsoir | See you later (informal) | A plus tard |
| Good night | Bonne nuit | See you soon | À tout à l’heure |
| Have a nice day | Bonne journée |
Practice your pronunciation with the above words in this audio recording!
French simple words: Replying to greetings
| English | French |
|---|---|
| Good, thanks | Bien, merci |
| Very good | Très bien |
| I am great (informal) | Ça va / Ça roule |
| Not bad (informal) | Pas mal |
| Soso (informal) | Comme-ci, Comme-ça |
| As usual (informal) | Comme d’hab |
| Quite well | Assez bien |
| Everything is going well | Tout va bien |
Practice your pronunciation with the above words in this audio recording!
French simple words: Introducing yourself
| English | French |
|---|---|
| What is your name? (informal) | Comment tu t’appelles? |
| What is your name? (formal) | Comment vous appelez-vous? |
| My name is Bérénice | Je m’appelle Bérénice |
| Nice to meet you | Je suis heureux/euse de faire votre connaissance |
| Pleasure to meet you | Enchanté(e) de faire votre connaissance |
| Welcome | Bienvenue |
Practice your pronunciation with the above words in this audio recording!
In French, we have two ways to say “you”. For the formal way, we will use “vous” and for the informal way, we will use “tu”. “Vous” is used when you talk to someone you do not know (an employee in a shop) or someone you know but you respect (your doctor). It is really important in French to know that because if you say “tu” instead “vous” the person will be offended. “Tu” will be used when you talk to your friends, your family. Be careful because we also use “vous” as plural to talk to a group of people.
Take a look at the article below for more information!
~ Difference between “tu” and “vous” in French (informal/formal)
French simple words: Event greetings
| English | French |
|---|---|
| Happy birthday | Joyeux anniversaire |
| Happy Easter | Joyeuses Pâques |
| Happy holidays | Bonnes vacances |
| Merry Christmas | Joyeux noël |
| Happy New Year | Bonne année |
Practice your pronunciation with the above words in this audio recording!
More vocabulary
| English | French | English | French |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes / No | Oui / Non | You’re welcome informal | Je vous en prie |
| Thank you very much | Merci beaucoup | Mister | Monsieur |
| French | Français | Miss | Mademoiselle |
| France | France | Madam | Madame |
| Excuse me (informal) | Excuse-moi | I am sorry | Je suis désolé(e) |
| Excuse me (formal) | Excusez-moi | Do you speak French? | Parlez-vous Français? |
| You’re welcome informal | De rien | What time is it? | Quelle heure est-il? |
| Can you help me? | Pouvez-vous m’aider? | How much is it? | Combien ça coûte? |
| I do not understand | Je ne comprends pas | I speak a little French | Je parle un peu Français |
| How do you say … in French? | Comment dit-on … en Français? | Could you speak more slowly please? | Pourriez-vous parler plus lentement s’il vous plaît? |
| I don’t know | Je ne sais pas | Where / When / What / Who / Why / How | Où / Quand / Quoi / Qui / Pourquoi / Comment |
Practice your pronunciation with the above words in this audio recording!
How to make the learning fun?
In my opinion, the best is French learning App. Language learning applications are very popular nowadays. They offer grammar, vocabulary practice and emphasize on the importance of repetition. As you progress, you earn virtual rewards to boost your motivation to go further and further. Also, you can follow at your own rhythm. You do not have the pressure to be with other students that learn faster than you. The most important is to do it regularly and learn something everyday.
Note: I have recently discovered another vocabulary App called “Drops language learning”, it is quite fun! You associate the word with images and it keeps repeating for you to remember the words. At some point, it will ask you to place syllables of the words in the right order. There is a timing for you to practice just five minutes a day. Try it 🙂 (this App pushes you to buy a subscription, just close the windows and use it for free)